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Out of nowhere, one of my favourite games of all time landed out the App Store last night for iPhone and iPad.

there’s no universal build?! WHY WAS I EVEN BORN

I had heard nothing about The World Ends With You being released on iOS until yesterday morning, so imagine my surprise when I further learned that the release date was that NIGHT. Things never happen that quickly in my world, but it was true: last night at 8pm I handed over a wad of money (in app terms, anything that costs more than $0.99 can be declared a wad) and was soon downloading one of the best games ever made for the DS; to be played on my iPad.

The future is here, and it sounds AWESOME.

I spent much of yesterday squealing on Twitter about the upcoming release (when I wasn’t being a raging bitch, but that’s a story for another time), and last night I finally (after, like, 7 hours of waiting) got my game on. I had actually been thinking about playing TWEWY on my DS again, but I didn’t want to overwrite my current, 99.8% complete game so I never really got much further than “that would sure be fun”. Until now! Now I can submerge myself in as much JRPG as I can handle, on a shiny new screen! I am so excited. They added some new features, but the game is the same AND all music is intact (something not even the still-unreleased Jet Grind Radio could promise), plus wireless play between friends and Twitter aspects. HOORAY!

So, why aren’t I telling you to go out and get this app right now or else?

Well, two reasons:

The World Ends With You is an AWESOME GAME but it is not for everyone. It is complicated. It is weird. You will want to strangle the main character. You will likely want to give up in disgust several times. I know when I first played it I was really annoyed by it (something I went through again last night; Neku is a little bitch), but I kept at it and soon I was enjoying then fucking loving the game. It’s terribly Japanese, and if you’re not familiar with the JRPG genre, it might scare you away.

Also, it’s not just a wad of money – it’s several wads, plus one of your lesser-used limbs.

Being a Square Enix game, the app does not cost the usual $0.99. It’s not $1.99, or even $4.99. Ed took a guess at $7.99, and even that was really off: the iPhone version is $17.99, and the iPad version is $19.99. There is no universal build, and Squeenix apps do not go on sale. In this crazy new world of angry birds and apps that drop to a sale price of “free” all the time, that’s a huge price to pay.

That being said, the DS version of the game was (and likely still is; it’s almost impossible to find used) $45. I often wonder how game developers can afford to survive when they sell their products for $1, which is why I go out of my way to encourage people to buy the games I truly think deserve some extra love. If a big developer like Square Enix wants to port their well-loved games over to a medium with an enormous audience, I don’t mind paying the price (TWEWY prices are in line with some of the Final Fantasy games that have been released on iOS). It’s not like I buy $20 apps every day (in fact, this is my first), and I REALLY love this game – it’s well worth it to me to pay the money to be able to play it again, all refreshed and new with added content and updated graphics.

ENOUGH INTERNET! I need to go buy a lace bonnet to increase my attack in the Shibuya District!